May 28, 2011

After a long wait, please let me introduce to you today another achieved female blogger: Lynn Casper. Amongst other projects, Lynn produces Homoground, a weekly queer music podcast, and runs a personal tumblr called scantron.

If you'd like to find out how blogging helps us strengthen our personalities, why dead blogs are part of the process, and what unfortunate umbrellas have to do with Lynn's work, just follow the jump! :)

May 27, 2011

Not too long ago, "news" broke in Germany that a bunch of insurance brokers were celebrating lucrative deals by taking advantage of prostitutes and snorting cocaine in an open air brothel. Sibylle Berg, a Swiss author who describes herself on her Twitter with the words "buys nothing, fucks no one", has dedicated her weekly SPIEGEL ONLINE column to the issue. In "I've had it, Men!" (in German "Männer, ich habe es satt!") she wonders, amongst other things, how the world would react if suddenly women were to become pimps, make men walk the streets in strings and so forth. Quite a fun read, indeed - if it weren't for Berg's inherent stereotyping of all men as horny, black men as slaves, veiled women as oppressed, and naked ones as desperate. Good on the German blogosphere for offering an alternate perspective! For a worthwhile counterstatement, please read Nadia Shehadeh's comment entitled "I've had it, Ms. Berg!" (in German: "Frau Berg, ich habe es satt!").

May 25, 2011

On 30th June and the 1st of July, the 6th Annual Open Knowledge Conference will take place in Berlin. The event aims at bringing together individuals and organizations interested in all things open knowledge. If you've been following GCB, you know that I agree with the organizers' assumption that

open knowledge promises significant social and economic benefits in a wide range of areas from governance to science, culture to technology. Opening up access to content and data can radically increase access and reuse, bridge gaps, improve transparency and thus foster innovation and increase societal welfare.

The conference programme looks super interesting, and I'm keen to go! Let's hope my boss sees the necessity of me being there, too, since both conference days are weekdays... Tickets are available for one or two days respectively - there's still a chance to grab some at early bird rates before 31st May.

May 21, 2011

Brave as any woman can be, CBS reporter Lara Logan recalls the February night on Tahrir Square in Egypt, when a mob tore off her clothes and violently sexually assaulted her in the middle of the road. She decided she would only tell this story once, hoping that this one telling is heard by as many people as possible. (Source)

In another US TV-related story, Roseanne Barr, one of my childhood heroines, has written an essay on sexism in the media industry and her difficult rise to stardom: And I should know. I loved the part where ABC sent her a cake to celebrate her show's one year anniversary in 1988; knowing what men were given for equal success, Roseanne and her co-star George Clooney took the cake outside where she snapped a picture of him hitting it with a baseball bat to send it to the producers. You go, girl! (Source)

Apparently, Yoga benefits breast cancer patients.Among affected women tested, those practicing Yoga while in treatment were of better general health, had lower stress hormone levels and saw improvement of their physical state altogether. Source and more information.

While I have recently stopped eating meat and have been very good at forgoing fish, too, I am aware that not all of us are willing to give up the tastes we grew up with for ecological reasons just yet. So I was happy to see that Canadian blogger Eco Yogini collected a bunch of eco-tips for eating fish.

May 19, 2011

Better late than never: I added Facebook's LIKE button to my posts. As of now, you may finally like, share and recommend whatever tickles your fancy here. Especially installed for those who like to show appreciation in silence. ;) Or you may directly mail posts to your friends on Facebook via the SEND option. Definitely an improvement in service quality, innit?

May 18, 2011

Yesterday, the Black Weblog Awardspublished this year's nominees for the prize in a bunch of categories: From 'Best Business Blog' to 'Best Comic Blog', over 150 people have been nominated in a total of 37 categories (!) for their social media work. Wow, that's a whole load of new information sources to explore!

Founded in 2005, the Black Weblog Awards give recognition to Black bloggers (and those of the African diaspora) which were largely overlooked by other Internet award events online. Participants of the contest come from over 90 countries which probably makes the award the most widespread Internet award event for Black bloggers. Please find more info on the contest and how to participate in the future here.

May 17, 2011

Nina Trippel, one of the editors of fashion magazine derze.it*, and her colleague Sven Hausherr started a newsletter project: Cee Cee is a bilingual, weekly service on all things hip and trendy in Berlin. Subscription is free and I recommend you English and/ or German speakers in the area give it a shot! :)

May 12, 2011

tumblr, a comparatively new blog software, has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere since its launch in 2007. Albeit the multi-media possibilities the platform offers, it has mainly been used to quickly and easily share images - often anonymously.

All the more happy I am to be able to introduce to you today Leah Leslie, editor of the wonderfully overflowing art collection Fuck Yeah, Book Arts. Please follow the jump below for an interesting interview with the mind behind this beautiful and super-successful project.

May 5, 2011

If it weren't for Anne Roth of annalist, perhaps there would be no GIRLS CAN BLOG today. It was Anne who, a little over a year ago, initiated a discussion on the invisibility of female bloggers: Where and who were they? Why would mainstream media only ever refer to our male colleagues? Inspired by Nadine Lantzsch (whose portrait is available here), I wrote my first post on the matter and created GCB... And wow, what a ride this blog has been!

But back to Anne and her admirable pragmatism. Just ask yourself this: How would you react if your partner was mistaken for a terrorist and put into jail on the grounds of, well, nothing?

May 3, 2011

Blogger V. of Picked Pics posted this photo while standing at a traffic light in Seoul,
South Korea, amazed at what technology can do these days...

Elke Brüns discusses the question whether a poor childhood can make you a sick adult. She found an article entitled The Poverty Clinic in the New Yorker and sums it up in a German post whose title is borrowed from a professor working at Harvard Medical School: Neuronen und Nachbarschaften.

Micro-payment service Flattr is now open to all: No need to spend at least 2€ a month to participate anymore, and Flattr buttons will never turn inactive again. I like!

...and on the other side of the world in Hamburg, Germany,Lantzschi is amazed at what little girls can do these days.

Svenja of Synaesthetisch came across an interview with author Arno Geiger and philosopher Klaus Mainzer. I am linking to it in spite of their conversation being published in Chrismon, a christian/protestant magazine, because the word God is not mentioned once. Also, I recently finished Geiger's brilliant new novel Der alte König in seinem Exil which deals with his father's Alzheimer's. My friend Simone Finkenwirth has also read the book and published a German review here.

A brief peek behind the scenes for everyone interested in computing: Kathleen of the Official Gmail Blog introduces her colleague Petra, a software engineer.

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